THE LETTERS AND TAPE: PART TWO

PRESTON '75: JOAN HARRISON MURDER

AGE

DATE

PLACE

OUTCOME

26

November 20 1975Thursday night10:30 pm

Preston

Murdered

The two letters posted in March 1978, one to George Oldfield, and the
other to the Manchester offices of the Daily Mirror, both claimed that the police had the number of
Yorkshire Ripper victims wrong. The letters stated "Up to number 8 now you say 7 but remember
Preston '75", a reference to the Joan Harrison murder.

Joan Harrison, age 26, a native of Chorley, and living apart from her husband and daughters for
about two years, often looked 20 years older than her age due to her chronic alcoholism. Her health
was deteriorating rapidly, and she was also hooked on morphine contained in cough mixtures, which
she had been known to consume at the rate of eight bottles a day. She had close associations with
other alcoholics, drug addicts, and prostitutes in the Preston area. While she did not have any
convictions for prostitution, it was know that she would take money for sex in order to feed her drinking
habit. In 1974, she plead guilty to stealing and to forging a drug prescription in an appearance at
Preston Magistrates Court. During the case, she was described as "a complete wreck of a human
being."

In July 1975, Joan Harrison, unemployed and living on social security, began renting a room in
the Avenham Street area of Preston from landlord David Keighley. The two began a relationship, David
Keighley trying to give her a stable home life and show a better side of life, but fighting a losing battle
with her alcoholism, which sometimes resulted in binges where she would associate with the winos
on skid row. David Keighley said they were engaged to be married and he had bought her a ring.

On Thursday, November 20 1975, Joan Harrison spent most of the day at the St Mary's Hostel for
homeless men, having a voluntary job as a part-time cleaner where she helped out with the
washing up. According to Ian Pinchen, the hostel's warden, Joan Harrison set off with some of
the hostel's staff at lunchtime for a drink at the nearby St Mary's pub. She came back drunk after
the afternoon closing time, and was allowed to lie down on one of the rest beds. Shortly after 4:00 pm
she had sexual intercourse with a man at the hostel.

It wasn't until around 10:00 pm before she was sober enough to return to her own home. When
David Keighley refused to give her any money for more drink, Joan Harrison angrily left her
home at around 10:20 pm, walking along Church Street towards the Preston town centre, wearing
a light green three quarter-length coat with an imitation fur collar, turquoise-blue jumper with a bright
yellow tank-top over it, dark brown trousers, and brown suede calf-length boots.'

At around 8:00 am on Sunday, November 23 1975, shortly after her husband Ronald had left for
work, Mrs Mildred Atkinson left her home on Guildford Road to go to the newsagents to get the Sunday
papers. As she walked along Berwick Road, at the rear of No. 3 Frenchwood Street, which had
been recently sold to the council and had been vacant for a month, she noticed that the door on a
derelict lock-up garage on the property was flapping and banging in the wind. When the door blew
open she saw a body lying face down on the concrete floor in the garage, a coat over its head, and
blood on the ground beside it. Her first thoughts were that it might have been a drunken man who had
banged his head. In reality, she had discovered the body of the murdered Joan Harrison.

Lying face down, Joan Harrison had been moved a few feet from where the initial attack had
happened. Her trousers were pulled down and one leg was out of her pants and tights, and one of her
boots had been removed. Before her coat had been placed over the body, the boot that had been
removed had been placed over her leg so that it appeared to be worn. She had been wearing two padded
bras, both had been lifted up to expose her breasts, but one of the bras, which had been unfastened,
had slipped down again.

The post-mortem was carried out at Preston Royal Infirmary by pathologist Dr John Benstead,
who was unable to determine either the exact cause of death, or pinpoint the time of death.
The cause of death given on the death certificate was: "haemorrhage and shock caused by multiple
injuries, murder by person or persons unknown". Joan Harrison had one u-shaped laceration on the
back of her head. The Lancashire police concluded that she had been hit with the heel of a lady's
shoe, though none was found, and Joan Harrison had been wearing boots. Later it was thought that
the injury could have been consistent with an attempt to hit her with a hammer. There were also
extensive injuries to her head, face, body, and legs, which it was concluded had been caused by
violent kicking and stamping. There were no stab wounds.

There were also bite marks on Joan Harrison's left breast, which were examined by Liverpool
dentist, James Furness, a specialist in forensic odontology, who was fond of saying, "People can lie
through their teeth, but their teeth cannot lie." He concluded that the marks on the breast had been
put there a short time before death, and that the bruising indicated a clear gap in the front upper
teeth.

Pathological examination of the body also found semen deposits, apparently due to vaginal and
anal intercourse, and at around the time of death. Approximately 80 per of the population secrete
blood-cells into body fluids like semen and saliva. It was established that the semen came from one
of about six per cent of the male population that belonged to blood group B. The man at the hostel
who had had sexual intercourse with Joan Harrison had blood group A. The Lancashire police took
saliva samples from over six thousand men, including friends and acquaintances, those in the Avenham
area of town and its environs, crews from ships that had been at the Preston docks at around the time
of the murder, etc.

The police also discovered that Joan Harrison's handbag and purse were also missing.
Joan Harrison's handbag was thought to include such items as cigarette lighters, rings, bracelets, an
inhaler used by asthmatics, and possibly a diary, although without many detailed entries. Lancashire
police believed that the murderer was a local familiar with the area. The police believed they had
further confirmation of this when her purse was found two months later hidden in a bush in
Avenham Park, and in June 1976 when her handbag was found carefully hidden in a refuse-tip about
400 yards from where she was killed.

The murder of Joan Harrison was not felt by the Lancashire police to be connected to, what
eventually would be known as the first Yorkshire Ripper murder, the murder of Wilma McCann the
previous month. It was after Irene Richardson was murdered in 1977, with the similar arrangement of
boots placed over the legs to make them appear to still be worn, and the covering of the body with a
coat, that the Lancashire and Yorkshire police thought there might be a possible connection to the
series, but because of the obvious sexual assault and robbery, elements missing from the Yorkshire
Ripper attacks, the murder of Joan Harrison was not conclusively linked. It was the letters and tape,
including the forensic evidence from them, which would finally cause the Joan Harrison murder to,
wrongly and tragically, be linked to the Yorkshire Ripper.